I was finding our new club home difficult enough during the winter, but now we're off the temporary tees it's just impossible for me. Take the par 5 12th: It was 110yds to the fairway (375yds to the green). Now it's 225yds (485yds to the green)!

220yds is right at the far end of my driver distance...or at least it was last year. Right now I'm struggling to reach 190 with the big stick, all of which means I just cannot reach the fairway! That's tough to play with.

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But, there was one good shot that I want to talk about...

18th (dog left left). Tee shot leaked off to the right, just off the fairway. Result was 160yds uphill to the green, clean lie. I went with my 3W, just a nice easy swing...and nailed it. It was actually slightly too good, just running off the green and up a bunker slope (from where I used my putter to get the ball on the green then two-putted for a bogey).

The reason I want to talk about it is not because of the result, but how the club head felt as it came in to the ball. It felt, well, heavy.

Not in a bad 'Oh my god I'm so weak that I can't swing this' kind of way, but like it felt full of power. As if the swing was so good that all sorts of centrifugal force was being created in the club head.

This was a brand new experience for me. Is this a common sensation for better players? Is that what a good, powerful, swing feels like?

JPJ can't help but wonder if you are working with a damaged or malfunctioning 3-wood. I think I've seen you in a video and you appear normal sized and not like one of Tolkien's hobbits. This is perhaps because I am a hard-swinging, Slazenger ball playing dickhead, but honestly I have a hard time imagining how anyone gets a 3-wood, using anything like a normal swing, to travel less than 200 yards. It does not require any crazy amount of speed.

The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies

Lots of people have lots of opinions about club fitting. One thing I think is important for all players is at least getting the shaft right. You can find your swing speed a million different ways these days. I think most commercial simulators offer that feature.

That said, yes, when my weight transfer aligns perfectly with my release, it is a wonderful feeling. I think you described it well. It seems like there is so much power there. The befuddling part of the golf swing is that since this usually happens when I'm just swinging easy hoping to make good contact, it still feels like there is so much left in the tank. But there isn't.

Seriously, though, I *consider* my 5w to be my 220 club. My average with it is probably around 180, though. I will note, though, that playing the wrong shaft can be a big problem that exacerbates inconsistent ball striking.

Crazy thing is....if you're a thrift store junkie, you could probably cobble together a pretty good set of clubs for around $50 here in Phoenix just by scrounging Goodwills for a couple of weeks.